electrohouse1

8/7/2019 Electrohouse1

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IIElectro-house production ~make music nalM

Drums ID rums are the lifeblood of allhouse music and electro is noexception. The most importantthing is a phat , punchy kick drum, butclose second (or even joint f irst) placegoes to the percussion. Tribal-styleloops, skippy hats, effected snares andvarious other bits and pieces all p layapart, but the most essential ingredient isswing. Ifyou don't take advantage ofyour sequencer's swing andgroove-quantising features (or at leastsample a loop from an existing track,which wil l almost certainly have grooveapplied) then your track wil l probablysound amateurish and wooden.

Youshould also be prepared to adda variety of effects to your percussive

sounds, to ensure they evolve over thecourse of an eight-bar loop, particularlyon quite minimal patterns.

Vibe-wise, the most important thingis to have plenty of skip and/or chug.

Whenever you're making house musicwith heavy quantisat ion, watch out forelements that clash - particularlythose with dif ferent amounts ofgroove applied. T ry nudging clashingevents together manually or,failingtha t. pul l them back to the r ig idquantise position.

Be careful with percussion. Otherhouse genres lend themselves tolayering lots of loops, but electrorequires more precision than that. I toften has deceptively complexpercuss ion, but this wil l be made upof very tai lored hits, all workingtowards a central groove.

" T H E B E S T E L E C T R O - H O U S E H A S A V A R IE T Y O F P E R C U S S IV EE L E M E N T S , IN T H E S A M E W A Y A S E A R L Y H A R D H O U S E "Justas with funky techno, the key is tohave energy, but without needing toramp up the tempo - in fact electro isusually made in the 12S-130bpm range,which is a fair bit slower than much ofit sounds.

Finally,the best electro-housemusic has a variety of percussiveelements, in much the same way asearly funkier hard house did in the late90s, but it doesn't generally feature thestandard 909 open hat too prominently.

Often there will be no open hat at all, ori f there is, i t wil l be gated and punchy.

At the end of the day, it' s likelearning to produce any style ofmusic - you progress bycopyingand adapting ...

STEP BY STEP To the beat of the drum

1We' re using L ive for the f ir st part of our tu tor ia l, bu t fi rs twe want a beefy k ick drum sample , which we' re goingto make in Log ic. We s tart by tak ing a few di ffe rent kickdrums from var ious sources. Some are punchy, some haveweight and bottom end. We then layer a ll o f them . .. - - _ _ . -0-0- 0- ",,--_ ~ ) li t s t ~ rmI~- ~ ~ - - - -. .

I Ir ~ . ~.~~ ' - I rI I I I I .4 We want to keep things minimal on this track, so weopt for a nice elect ronlc-soundlng closed hi-hat andhave it playing a very fast pat tern (on every 16th), thusdriving the track forward and mak ing i t sound much fasterthan our project 's current set ting of 126bpm.

2 Tomake i t easier to concentrate , we loop the kicks overa quarter bar. Then we apply some t ight compression,with Attack in the 35ms range to create a nice crack.We also app ly some bass boos t, Sonic Maximiza tion and abass cut at 32Hz to keep our kicks tidy but heaw.

5We do need some type of loop, though, so we import aone-bar loop created ear lier in Logic, compris ing a kickon each beat, a snare on beats two and four, and a hl-hat on every eighth-note, start ing with beat one. This gives thetrack a 'real-percussion' feel and f il ls out the beat section.

3Now we bounce the kicks down as one and load theresu lt ing kick sample into a new aud io channel in L ive.We then loop the kick sample over a quarter bar, sothat we f inal ly have a k ick drum playing on every beat. Wealso set our tempo (try 126bpml.

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6 Our k icks are fine , but we run the loop through SonicMaximizer and use a h igh-pass fi lte r to t rim offevery th ing below 790Hz, so we only get the sound ofthe loop. Some Sonic Maximizer, Vintage Warmer, ext racompression and stereo spread complete the hats.~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~

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make music nalM Electro-house production

II Bass IIE lectro bass is a wonderful thing.It can either be a rumblingsub-bass groover or a tearinglead line, but as with everything elseabout this techno-house hybrid genre, itneeds to be funky.

Essentially, there are three maintypes of bassline in electro - thebassline as a lead, which can be moremelodic; the low, grooving andreasonably monotonal sub-bass of themore minimal tribal-techno style tracks;and the absolutely hammeringmonotone beast of a bassline, such aswe plan to roll out in today's session.

The key to the first and last of thesetypes of bassline is a big, phat andtonal ly rich bass patch, ideally made of

some stacked saw and trianglewaves, and then grunged up with alow-pass filter and tweaked resonancesettings. Seriously, the bigger thebetter, and if you need to layer up acouple of synths (or more) to get areal ly thick and dir ty sound, then go fori t. After all, i fyour bass kicks in and thecrowd don't start punching the air andcheering, you've failed miserably andmight as well go back to making JamesBlunt sound-alikes ...

- - X F Y O U RP U c X I K S II R NI H

_STEP BYSTEPAU-important bass

1The f irst musical element in most elect ro t racks shouldbe the bassl ine. We s tart by f li ck ing through a fewpatches in a soft syn th. We' re using V irSyn 's Tera 3 -par tly because i t sounds huge, but more because i t has lotso f presets to make a star t w ith !

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i.0 .=0 ~ C ! l 1 I I ' C P T I ~ ~c. fl1o::lfil!lI I II III.. _'"'2 Having found a l ike ly patch . we p lay in a su itablymonotone bassl ine that f its our disgust ing basspatch perfectly. 3We fatten th ings up wi th Sonic Max imizer (high and low)and PSPVintage Warmer. After that. we use Live's BeatRepeat feature and automat ion envelope controls tobring in the effec t a t the end of every four bars.

~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - g mOne of t he best ways t o l iven up yourpercuss ion is to f li ck through some ofthe more esoteric LFO-driven synthpatches - particularly those with l it tlepops and clicks. You might have oftenwondered what use they were, butthey make petiect percussiveelements for electro tracks.

Create excitement by applying a l it tlephasing or f lang ing to some ofyourstranger percussive elements. Whenapplied to funky and minimal electrobea ts , this can rea ll y add to a t rack .T ry bounci ng down 32 bars of i tand choose the best effectedfour or eight..

060 I COMPUTER MUSIC lOaTH ISSUE TUTORIAL

Bass as a leadWe've already discussed the type ofbasslines that you get in electro, but byfar the most recognisable is thebassline as a lead. And if you don't thinkyou've heard this type of track (or,indeed, genrel),then you must havemissed the Studio B track, I See Girls,which was rather large in the charts andclubs last year (despite having beenoriginally released some time beforethat). The version you will recognise, andthe one which is arguably the definitiveblueprint for bouncy electro (albeit amuch less credible blueprint than it wasbefore MTVand The Box got hold of it),is actually the Tom Neville Crazy Legs

remix. DJand producer Tom is at thecutting edge of this type of sound, andregularly performs live sets with acombination of Ableton LiveandPioneer CDJMklls. His sets naturallyfeature plenty of these enormous andbouncing lead basslines, so ifyou wantto try to master them yourself, you coulddo a lot worse than to check out one ofhis sets. And though I See Girls haslost much of its street cool, i t's sti llpossibly the best example of how tocombine a filthy bassline withpercussive synth leads on an electrotrack, and should be consideredessential listening... ..Shooling for the' See Girls albumartwork must've been a tough job . ..


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Synth sounds IE lectro synths that aren't basspatches are almost always quiteplinky affairs. In other words, theytend to have piano-l ike envelopes, withfast attacks followed by a quick drop-offand reasonably fast release. The reasonfor this, as we've discussed, is thatthese sounds lend themselves well tothe large synth patches usually foundon electro basslines, and also becausetheir percussive nature provides plentyof room for funky minimal r iffs and sexytape-delay effects.

There are also lots of pads andstrings employed in electro, as they canfill up tracks nicely without interferingwith the groove and flow of proceedings.For this reason, they're often used in

conjunction with very severe high-passfil tering, to ensure there's plenty of roomfor the bass to stand alone.

The last real ly common type of synthsound in electro is the type of blip andsqueak that br ings R2D2 to mind andthose suspiciously good synthprogrammers who have long beardsand wear baseball caps until they'rewell into the their 50s. Electro synth rif fsare generally quite minimal, with biggaps to emphasise the groove of the

track, and lit tle synth sounds playingone or two notes in these gaps helpkeep things moving along, in much thesame way as lit tle guitar or keyboardrif fs sit nicely in the gaps betweenthe lines of a song.

But enough talk! I t's t imeto sprinkle some sweetmusical icing on our rathersubstantial electro-cake ...~ Sl ic k a bi t of R2D2 f lava i n y our t rac ks .You can't get more e lect ro than that

T HSTEP BY STEP Synth it up

1We start out by p laying a simple r iff wi th a Euro-synthpatch from Ableton's Operator. The r if f loops over fourbars, w ith a three-beat gap. This k ind of s tart- stop r iff i sideal, and leaves plenty of room for our bassl ine to dominate,whils t keeping to the same groove.

4 We copy the r iff to yet another channe l. We want tostart filling the gap, but it can't be a sound with l ots oftop and upper mids , or the start -s top vibe wil l be los t.Hammond organ-s ty le patches are good for th is , so we ca llup jus t such a th ing in Opera tor.

N SP I r S O U D IN S R D T O

3Any more ri ffs now would ru in the groove, but we st il lhave plenty of scope to use that riff to the full, so wecopy it to a new channel and call up a pluckedclavi-sty le patch in Operator. This sits nicely under ourEuro-synth patch and adds some new tonal quali ty

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! I:I I: i !i -2 By fi ll ing some of the gaps in the r iff wi th shorter, quieterand lower notes p laying jus t before each of the longerones , our r if f gains energy - but we 're st il l care fu l t o

leave that three-beat gap at the end. We might want to put as tabby voca l in that space, but more on that nex t month !

5Tof il l in the gaps while keep ing th ings ro ll ing , we copyour riff over by one bar, so that it starts to play the sameth ing aga in over the end of the previous bar' s r iff .TheHarnrnond-esque patch is providing some much neededmusical drive, and smooths over the gaps gently.

6 Our r iff sounds so good that i t' s wor th copy ing to theother channels for use at the arrangement stage. Wecan then alternate between dif ferent combinations ofthe ful le r and the more sparse ri ffs , giving us p lenty o f optionswithout needing to clog the mix with addit ional elements. ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~

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make music nalM Electro-house production

!!ISTEP BY STEP Synth it up (co ntinued)

7 I t' s t ime we t id ied (and phattened) up our synth l ines.Start ing with our Euro-Iead, we t rim off some of thebass wi th a h igh-pass f il ter a t around 80Hz . Wewant it to have weight, but not so much that it clashes withthe energy of our bassl ine.

1 0Next up is our organ ri ff. This is too bass -heavy, sowe insert a h igh-pass fi lte r set to 108Hz .This waywe get the tonal ly r ich lower-mid f requencies

between the bass and the lead, without inter fering with either,which isv it al i fwe' re to have the organ p laying a fu ller r if f.

9 The last thing we do to our lead is calm down some ofthe patch's preset effects. We disable the ping-pongdelay, and turn down the reverb considerably. You onlywant enough so that i t isn't unnatural ly dry-sounding. Morethan that wi ll muddy the waters.

12We add similar Vintage Warmer, Sonic Maximizerand high-pass set tings to our clavi-sty le r if f, albeitwith the Cutoff set higher (430Hz). Finally, Erosion

adds some gri t to the clav ichord sound, and Audio Damage'sDubStation provides slapback-style delay.

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Recommended listening

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8 We add some Vintage Warmer to our lead, set to astrong compression level. This is complemented bysome Sonic Maximiza tion of the top end, and a bas ics tereo spread effect to g ive the mix a b it o f w id th . Play withthe sett ings unti l t he bass and lead stand apart.

11We insert a Vintage Warmer and Sonic Maximizerfor weight and clari ty . One more compressorplug- in (with quite a high Ratio and fast Attack and

Release set tings) completes the organ r if f. We shorten theRelease of the patch sl igh tly fo r even more punch.

As we've already mentioned, electroinfluences can be felt right across therange of house, funky house andprogressive house music, and it reallydoes pay to check out a good range ofwork from the professional producersout there.

If you're interested in the moreminimal side of things, there are fewproducers better than the highlyin-demand Mark Knight. With his veryminimal - almost techno - style, hemanages to get even cheddar- lovingdisco-queens rocki ng on the dancefloorevery time.

For the hands-in-the-air brigade, themuch sought after Haji & Emmanuelremixing double act can be relied on torock the place every time, and they

have a string of high profi le mainstreampop acts on their remix roster.

But the greatest thing about el ectrois that the level of production is so highthat you can learn new tricks and getideas from almost every track you hear.The scene has its fair share of derivativedross, of course, but new producersemerge every day, and each monthbrings another storming new track froma previously unknown producer.

So get out there on the web, pointyour browser to Beatport and have alisten. And make sure you do it beforenext month's concluding instalment, asthat's when we'll be doing ourarrangement and mixdown, and youcan't do those properly without a goodtemplate to work from.

062 I COMPUTER MUSIC lOaTH ISSUE TUTORIAL

. ..Download some electro from www.beatport.com and nab some production tips!
http://www.beatport.com/http://www.beatport.com/


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Theflow IA ny track in a genre built aroundfunky grooves wil l inherently l iveor die on the strength of its funkappeal. You cannot just draw in noteson rigid 16ths and expect to get peoplewiggling their asses. Fortunately, almostevery modern music-making packagecomes fully stocked withgroove-enhancing tools. But don't justswitch on the swing setting or apply agroove-quantise template and leave it atthat. Sure, these can work wonders, buti t's the personal touches that take thissort of thing to the next level. Trymanually shift ing some of yourpercussion and notes ever so slightlyforward or back (right or left , on most

MIDI part editors). And don't be afraidto put a few notes or percussionstr ikes back on the rigid beat , i f i t t id iesthings up or emphasises the other partsof the groove.

The two things to remember at allt imes, though, are that there's no rightway to add swing and groove, but thereare plenty of wrong ways, so don't getcarried away with super juddery edits.Always apply the head-nod test toeverything you're doing - the moreyou're nodding and swinging your head,the better the groove. Remember thatkey technique and you can't go too farwrong. All of which brings us to our ownmasterpiece - lets get swinging ...

...Using a groovetemplate is the quickand easy option - useyour imagina tion tof unk t hi ngs up a bi t!

STEP BY STEP Get into the groove

1We star t w ith the percussion . The loop is a simple af fa irso not a good candidate, but we apply a little 16T(tr iplet) quant isat ion to the hats. Liveenables you tospecify the percentage of groove applied, so we selectaround 30%.

2 We apply some of the same 16T quantisation to ourlead and clav i-st yle ri ffs , but this time at around 45%, asthey're quite l ight l ie, bass- light) sounds and so canafford to be a l ittle more severe. The more bass there is in asound, the less swing you can get away with.

3We add some 16T quantisation to our organ, but asthis is more bass-heavy, we pull one or two rhythmicallys ignificant notes to their quant ised posit ions in the MIDIedi to r. We add 35% 16T quantisa tion to our bassl ine, make acopy and shor ten a few notes for a more sparse variat ion.

I i ! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - ~STEP BY STEP Pulling things together

1With our key e lements in p lace and effect s app lied , wetry a few var iations on pat terns. We make dif ferentvers ions of our loops, some playing two bars and thens ilenced for the nex t two, some s ilen t fo r two then soundingfor the next two. We copy each variat ion to each par t . ..

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- 13And that's it for thi s month. We have all the makings ofa rockin' little electro tune - all we need now are somebel ls , some whist les, a voca l sn ippet or two, somestr ings and a kil ler arrangement . So, actually we're a long wayf rom the end, but we are at least t ravel ling on the r ight road.

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2 Using Live's l ive performance tools, we try out dif ferentcombinations of parts, and dif ferent segues betweenthem (you can do this manual ly in any sequencer) . Thiswil l throw out arrangement ideas and highl ight what addit ionale lements are needed to comple te the t rack.

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